once upon a time
by allechant
Summary: because there is rarely ever such a thing as a happy ending. Rated M for dark themes and mild gore. Not recommended for sensitive readers with fertile imaginations.


_Let me tell you a story, a fairy tale. You might think that fairy tales always have a happy ending, but that isn't always true. And fairy tales don't always have happy beginnings, or happy middles. Fairy tales are rarely very happy at all. And now, to begin this tragic tale, we must start with the words…_

Once upon a time, when wishes still worked and dreams could tell the future, there lived a princess. Her name was Hatsune Miku. Anyone who gazed upon her swore that she was the most beautiful girl in the world, and they could stay there for hours, enchanted by her face and elegance. Men who saw her fell hopelessly in love and would follow her, forgetting their duties and work and families.

At one point, it became so bad that the peasants were not growing crops, nor were the aristocracy giving the king money. The males of the surrounding villages simply waited at home all day, waiting for the princess to take her daily stroll through the land so that they could glimpse her face, and perhaps, they hoped, she would catch sight of them and fall in love and return their affections.

In desperation, the king and the queen decided to lock their daughter up in a tower and prevent anyone from ever seeing her again. So there she stayed, locked up and alone, waiting and waiting – for what? She did not know. She spent a few years alone in the tower, having only the company of her parents, who visited whenever they could, the birds and animals, and one faithful female servant to attend to her needs. The servant lived in a cottage that was some distance away from the lonely tower, so she only came to the tower for a few hours a day in the afternoon.

The princess, when she was newly born, had three fairies visit her. The first one had blessed her with wit and charm. The second had blessed her with her grace and beauty, a blessing her parents felt was somewhat more of a curse now. The third fairy had blessed her with a gift that most of the court, at that time, felt to be rather unimportant compared to the previous two gifts – the gift of sweet song and dance. The princess had a lovely singing voice, and this previously unheeded gift turned into the princess' greatest treasure during her long and miserable time spent alone.

Her singing drew the birds and the animals, and could be heard for a few miles away from her tower. It was why her parents constructed her tower in such a remote area, in the middle of a forest that lay not far from the outskirts of their city. Her voice was sweet and piercing, and entranced any living creature that was fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate, enough to hear the melody.

Rumour had it that there was meant to be a fourth fairy at the christening, but she never showed up and when questioned, the other three fairies refused to say anything regarding this suspiciously missing fourth. They insisted on moving on with the blessings, and the king and queen, at that time not wanting to anger the fairies, did as they wished. The fourth fairy was forgotten about in time to come, and as the princess grew older and older, she was erased from memory altogether.

What the king and queen did not know was that the fourth fairy did, in fact, exist, and the reason why she did not make it to the christening was because, on their way to the infant princess' christening, the group of four encountered a forest demon, which sprang out and caught them unawares. As the foul demon had the element of surprise, the fairies could not react in time to cast their repelling magic, and a fierce battle ensued. The fairies were losing, for they were peaceful creatures and typically did not engage in combat. The forest demon was starving for flesh and magic, and that made their fight all the more harder to win. Finally, the fourth fairy made a choice.

She sacrificed herself by staying behind to distract the forest demon, telling the other three to run and go to the princess' christening first – better one of them lost than all four, she said. The three reluctantly fled the scene of the fight and flew away as quickly as their wings could take them, cringing as they heard the harsh cries of the forest demon mixed with the screams of their sister.

They never knew what happened in the end to the fourth fairy, and made a vow never to speak of the incident to another person, for they wanted to preserve her honour and memory. For they knew, if their sister really lost to the foul beast, the demon would let its spirit infect her body, thereby obtaining control over her stronger magic. Demons were magical creatures, just as the fairies were, but relied more on brute strength as their offensive magic was not up to par with fairies. Fairies were magically stronger than demons, but given that magical energy took a while to summon, it was near-impossible for the physically frail fairies to triumph over a demon's attacks. A group of fairies could kill a demon. A single fairy against a desperate beast…they knew the results.

Now, this corrupted fairy, after being taken over by the demon, roamed the woodlands in which it found itself, hungry for human flesh. The corruption showed itself physically, turning the fairy's glittering radiance into poisonous darkness, her eyes into blood-red jewels. Within her mind, the demon found the memory of the princess, and decided that there would be no better meal for it than the flesh of royalty. So the demon-fairy decided to seek out the princess, wherever she was.

Meanwhile, the princess, Hatsune Miku, continued her lonely song. Now eighteen years old, she had spent the past three years alone in her tower, and was getting used to the constant silence and loneliness that came with her isolation. There was only one way down from the tower, and that was via a magical ring that her servant, Megurine Luka, carried with her – a ring that the three fairies had fashioned upon the request of her parents. At the approach of the wearer of the ring, one side of the stone tower would fall into itself, a door forming in the cavity. This door would lead up to her room.

The only other way was by her hair, her long, long hair she had not cut since she was born. She had entertained the thought of leaving the tower by letting herself down with her hair, using the length as a rope which she could loop over a hook in the tower's side – but she never really got around to it, because whenever she plucked up the courage to try, Luka would show up. She was frightened of being alone outside of the tower, for she was defenceless and weak and she knew that if she got lost in the forest, the wild wolves would eat her. Luka knew her way through the forest, but Luka would not be persuaded to lead her to freedom, convinced that the outside world was too dangerous for her princess. Miku was not foolhardy enough to risk her life trying to escape from her tower.

She understood her parents' rationale for keeping her here, but she resented it nevertheless. She recalled her fifteen years of freedom before and wondered why, instead of keeping her away, her parents didn't just prevent the men from being distracted by her. Or instead of locking her away by herself in this tower, couldn't she just stay in the castle, and at least have the freedom to roam the castle grounds? It was better than being stuck in this tiny circular room, with nothing but her voice and dance to entertain her. She devoured books quickly. Books were never enough. Drawing was not enough.

Some days she felt like she was doomed to nothing but maddening, mind-numbing boredom. But one day, the day of her nineteenth birthday, things changed. She was singing her song as usual, mournful sorrow piercing through the sweetness of the melody, when suddenly from underneath her tower she heard a shout. She looked out of the window, wondering if she had imagined it.

There, beneath her window, stood a boy, perhaps the same age as her, for he certainly looked very youthful, at least from this distance. He had blond hair which he wore in a neat ponytail, and there was a smart, feathered green hunting cap on top of his head. He was dressed in the garb of a hunter, a bow on his back and a quiver filled with white feathered arrows. He stood next to a pure white horse, which was tethered to a nearby tree, and he was looking right back up at her.

"You have a lovely voice, miss," he shouted up at her, voice loud and clear. He had a soothing voice, she found – smooth and pleasant to listen to. "I would like to make your acquaintance, if you would so mind?" she shook her head empathically. He seemed like a decent person, and his polished accent and gentlemanly behaviour made her think that he was not someone she should have to be wary of. Besides, her parents had never educated her fully on the dangers of trusting strangers – Hatsune Miku was, admittedly, too naïve for her own good. "Is there a way up into your tower? I circled the base, but I see no door," he continued shouting, though his voice was straining now.

"There is no door," she answered, raising her voice likewise so he could hear her. "This tower is only accessible through a magic ring that only my servant has, and she only arrives in the afternoon. I do know of a way to get you up, though," she shook her hair out, letting the long length snake down the side of the tower. He stood back in obvious wonder, eyeing her hair as though he could not believe what he was seeing – she saw him reach out to touch her hair, then suddenly withdraw, as though shocked. "Just climb up," she called, "my hair is strong enough to support more than one person."

After some hesitation, he grasped her hair and started to climb. A few minutes later, he was swinging into her room, slightly out of breath from the exertion but looking no worse for the physical activity. For, now that she could see him up close, she saw that he was handsome. He had pretty blue eyes that complemented his flaxen hair, and up close she could see that his garb was of good, heavy material. He raised her hand to his lips, introducing himself as Kagamine Len, the youngest prince of three from the neighbouring kingdom. He was hunting here, he told her, in this forest that was classified as no-man's land, when he heard and was entranced by her singing.

"And I must say, miss, that you have the loveliest voice I've ever heard," he said earnestly, those pretty blue eyes locking with hers. "May I know who you are, before I lose memory of my manners?"

"I am Hatsune Miku, princess of the kingdom adjacent to yours," she curtsied, her manners not escaping her. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Prince Len," and with that he instantly bowed to her, looking almost shamefaced when he rose from his position. "Why do you fret so?" she asked.

"I did not know I was speaking with the king's daughter. Forgive me for my forwardness and utter lack of manners, princess," he answered, though the glimmer of mischief lay in his blue eyes. She found that she liked his way of speech and his humour, and the way he brought her news of a world beyond her tower, so she laughed and spoke with him and time flew by in a way it never had before. Suddenly, the sun was up in the sky and she knew abruptly that Luka would be here at any moment.

"You must leave," she told him. He made to protest, but she shushed him. "You can come back another day, perhaps next month or next week or in a day, I will always be here," she reassured him. That seemed to lighten his spirits, and he nodded. He left the same way he came, scaling down the tower side using her hair, and scarcely moments after he rode away on his white horse and she brought all her hair back up from the ground, Luka approached from the edge of the forest.

The servant immediately picked up on the princess' good mood, and jovially asked what the change was – if she had, perhaps, dreamt of a prince. The princess, not wanting to reveal the truth and alarm the servant girl, just said she woke up from a pleasant dream of her parents, and that satisfied Luka enough that she did not continue probing for the truth. The princess kept the memory of the prince close to her heart, and wondered when would be the next time she saw him. She hoped it would not be that long, because she would miss him sorely. Perhaps, she thought, she liked him.

Meanwhile, the demonic fairy had followed its memories to the kingdom where the princess was born. It had taken a while, for the memories were fuzzy and the forest where the demon attacked was a considerable distance away from the princess' kingdom. However upon arrival, it found no trace of the girl. It kept out of sight from the rest of the villagers, knowing that its different appearance would cause them to panic, and not wanting to induce such fear in the masses – not yet, anyway. The demon within the fairy growled for sustenance, but now that the demon and fairy were one, the higher intelligence of the fairy shushed the demon, telling it to be patient – to feast only on the flesh of the princess, and leave the lowly villagers alone. The demon, in anger, conceded to the fairy, secretly wishing to one day inhabit the body of another instead. The demon decided that when the time came, it would leave the fairy's body and enter a stronger host, leaving the fairy to die. The only reason why the fairy had not died from the wounds she received in their battle was because the spirit of the demon animated her and kept her alive.

Still, she was not fully alive, not fully in control of her thoughts and actions. The fairy was nothing but a hollow shell meant to host a parasite. All that remained was the fairy's magical powers and her more developed rationality. The demon was, admittedly, rather dim, and in this aspect it listened to the intellect of the body it inhabited. The fairy's conscience and consciousness were gone, passed on to the next world or wherever magical beings went to after their death. Only her intelligence, that served only the demon's purposes, was left behind, along with her magical prowess. The demon thought that perhaps it would, instead of eating the princess, take over her body, for even with its limited knowledge and intelligence, it knew that the princess would be blessed by other fairies. Surely a mortal body, bigger and faster than a fairy, with magical gifts bestowed upon it but not possesing any magic of its own, would be more compliant than this bossy creature it now found itself attached to.

The demon kept the thought separate from the fairy and continued on its way. The fairy demon went towards the castle, where it knew the princess should be, yet it found no trace of the princess. It overheard a conversation between two servants, however, about the princess being of age to marry soon, yet unable to find any suitors due to her cursed beauty and her isolation at the fringes of the kingdom, in a lonely tower deep in the forest. The demon fairy hummed in appreciation of this newfound knowledge and decided to seek out the tower instead, where the demon thought it would change its host.

In the tower, the days continued, long and familiar, but with the change of the prince. Prince Len, after that initial arrival, had come to her tower almost every day. The days he could not come, he explained, were because he had court duties to attend to in his home, which frustrated him somewhat for he was the youngest prince and had no interest whatsoever in the affairs of the throne. He said his older brothers, Kagamine Leon and Kagamine Rinto, had more responsibilities than he did, so he always tried to slip away from the castle and hunt, which was his favourite sport. He was blasé about his evasion of his responsibilities, seemingly unbothered by duty, and that made her a little uncomfortable for it made her think of him as lazy, but she pushed the thought away.

She was enthralled by his tales of adventure and bravery, making the appropriate noises of wonder whenever he detailed a particularly dangerous or strenuous hunt. He asked for the reason for her isolation, and reacted with extreme disbelief – "no person should have to suffer like this by having their freedom taken away, especially due to something they did not wish to do, or even wish for!" he exclaimed. As someone who valued freedom, he said, he could not stand the thought of being imprisoned the way she was. He said he would return home and discuss this with his father, the king, and persuade him to ask _her_ father to seek a better, more long-term solution than shutting her up.

She hoped that his talks would be successful, and each time he came she would ask how the progress was, whether she could get out of the tower any time soon. Her father and mother, whenever they came to visit her, always disregarded her pleas for freedom, stating that it was for her own good and for the kingdom's sake. Perhaps with the voice of another royal family, she would have a more solid case for leaving the tower. "It is inhumane," the prince declared, "to be treated like a prisoner when your only offence was to be beautiful. For you are beautiful," at this, he stopped and looked her keenly in the eye, "and I think I may have fallen in love with you."

She was uncertain if she returned his feelings for she did think that she liked him, though love might be too strong a word for her liking. She also could not help but wonder whether that love he said he felt was a result of her beauty rather than anything else, but when he asked to come back to her tower that same night, she agreed, her sheltered mind having no idea what he had in store for her.

That night, when he came back, he did strange things to her and her body, and she didn't know whether to like it or cry, for it hurt her though he seemed to like it. She bled, and he said he was sorry, but he said now they had lain together it was a promise that they would marry. She just went along with it, at this point no longer because of simple innocence but because of her fear that, if she did not agree, he would inflict more of this pain upon her. She did not dare to tell Luka about the prince because she feared that the servant girl would report this to her parents, and she would end up in trouble. She thought, perhaps if she just kept quiet, the prince would stop, and everything would go back to normal, to the days before he started visiting her. She was regretting it a little now.

She did not regret his company, but she regretted the pain that came with it, and sometimes she wondered whether she regretted the pain of separation too. She did not know exactly what was love, her mother told her stories when she was younger of love spurned and love eternal, but she never personally felt it before so she wasn't sure if the warmth in her chest when he spoke to her was simply love or…or gratitude that someone was actually talking to her, that she wasn't alone. This alone was enough to stop her from telling him never to come to her again. The fear of being alone once more was more than enough to override her fear of what he might do to her.

She was a social child, which was why she suffered so badly when put alone in this tower. The few hours Luka spent with her were simply not enough, and the birds could not talk to her though they sang and tried to distract her from her loneliness. The fear of being alone again was worse than her fear of death and pain, so she continued letting him come to her at night. She realised, after the first time, when he was slower and more patient, that it did not hurt as badly – but it did not mean she was enjoying herself exactly, for though he sounded like he was pleased, she felt hollow inside. She wondered if that meant she did not love him, and only sought the attention that he gave to her.

The demon fairy had found the tower by now, and it lay in wait in the depths of the forest, waiting and observing. Much like Prince Kagamine Len, it had noticed that there was no door in the tower, and that the door only opened when the servant girl with the pink hair came towards the tower. However, since the demon fairy had no idea that it was actually a ring rather than the girl herself which opened the entrance, it did not try to attack the servant, thinking that if it did, it would lose all hope of gaining entry to the tower. It did not doubt for an instance that the girl in the tower was the princess. The fairy's memories could sense the glimmers of fairy magic in the air – magic of her three sisters, no less, and it all came from the lone open window up high in the tower wall.

Thus, the demon fairy continued lying in wait, and the next morning it saw a boy riding a white horse eagerly towards the tower. The boy tethered his horse somewhere near the demon fairy, which reared and grunted when it sensed the demon's presence. "You're rowdy today, aren't you?" the boy muttered, giving the horse a pat on the back – which, to the demon's amusement, failed utterly at soothing the stallion – and, without further ado, set off towards the tower. The fairy demon watched, and as the boy called out for the princess, the window opened and down tumbled long locks of teal, all the way to the ground. The boy grabbed hold of the hair and shimmied up the length, and moments later he was inside the tower, and the windows were swung closed.

That night, the fairy's intelligence formulated a plan, and the demon set to work to collect the magical herbs that would help bring the plan to fruition. It needed a drop of dew that formed in the cold light of the moon rather than the sun, the tail of a dead wolf cub, and the bark skin of a forest demon – something that, luckily, the demon was able to provide. The fairy used her knowledge to cast a spell of enchantment that would make it take, for a while, the appearance of another being.

And so the fairy demon used it upon itself, and it changed its appearance to that of the boy who climbed up the tower earlier. It called out the same greeting, and again the long locks of hair tumbled out. The fairy demon climbed up the locks of hair and came face-to-face with the girl. "Eat her, eat her now," the fairy's intelligence whispered to the demon, but the demon grunted in disagreement. Ignoring the fairy's shrieks of rage, the demon left the dying body behind – which quickly turned from the appearance of the boy to the now rapidly decomposing corpse of the dead fairy – and, turning upon the shocked and horrified princess, dissolved into mist, entering via her wide open mouth. There was a tremendous struggle, for the princess was somewhat protected by the magic of three fairies, but her weakness of mind led her to lose her consciousness, and satisfied, the demon took over. It looked upon the body of the dead fairy, now little more than bone and dust, and grunted again in approval. It was glad the fairy was finally gone, she was extremely annoying.

Though the demon had a more compliant body now, one that wouldn't question its every demand, it was still hungry for flesh, and quite obviously it could not eat the body now hosting it. So it decided to wait for the boy to come back the next day and eat him then. It went to bed, stomach rumbling but satisfied with its latest acquisition, quite astounded by the largeness and grace of the human body. It was the first time it used a human as a host rather than for prey, and it decided that it had chanced upon quite an excellent specimen of the species, though it noticed there was a strange, uncomfortable growth within its host's stomach, or at least what appeared to be the stomach. The human herself had not noticed the growth. It would get rid of that strange thing soon, it decided.

The next day, when the boy came to visit, the demon did everything as the princess usually would – it let down its long teal hair, greeting the boy with its sweet voice. When the boy drew the princess into a kiss, the demon allowed it, patiently biding its time though feeling somewhat repulsed by the physical contact. When the boy pushed its host down on the bed, the demon allowed it too, knowing that the moment was nearing – then, when the boy was naked and was starting to undress the princess as well, the demon turned over, forcing the bewildered boy beneath it. Then it showed itself, the eyes turning from green to red, the fangs baring and fingernails hardening into dangerous claws. The boy began to scream, but the demon ignored him, gorging itself on human flesh.

After that, when it was full and satisfied and the only thing left of the boy was bones picked entirely clean of flesh, it decided it would be prime time to expel that unnecessary growth within its body. So the demon methodically got to work, taking off the undergarment that was in its way and, with the magic that it possessed as well as the trace remains of magic it had from the fairy, started the premature expulsion of the being inside it. It was a bloody affair, but the demon was unfazed for it was used to pain and gore. There was really nothing quite as satisfying as feeling whole again, the demon thought, as the bloody bundle of red escaped from its host and onto the cold stone floor.

And that was the scene the servant girl saw when she entered the tower room – her princess, still as gracefully sweet and beautiful as ever, her legs covered in blood, cradling a bloody bundle in her arms while surrounded by the white, clean bones of what seemed to be an adult man. The princess smiled up at her, full lips and white teeth covered in crimson blood, her arms bloodied too by the bundle – and, as the servant stared, looking from the obscenely displayed thighs, which she could see because the princess had hitched her dress up, to the bloody, disfigured area between her thighs, to the bundle in her arms, she instantly made the connection. At that realisation, Luka fainted, not seeing how her princess smiled and raised the bundle to her lips, kissing her dead baby.

 _And I suppose, at the end of the day, there is one happily-ever-after – the demon, which knew from the start that humanity was flawed and only the most vicious could survive, the parasitic demon which only used others to further its own agenda, lived happily ever after, using the beauty of the princess to lure and devour other entranced males. But that, my dears, is another story._


End file.
